LAURA AXELROD

I’m a playwright but sometimes I have not wanted to admit it publicly or privately. I write plays and monologues, and I’ve been doing it for a very long time. How long?

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I’m old enough to say I’ve been in and around theater since the latter part of the 1980s. So, I’m old but not a boomer. Don’t call me a boomer.

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There have been stints when I’ve pretended not to know theater, but that’s only a time here and there. I had legit reasons for that.

I’m not going to list every single play or monologue I’ve written here. You’re going to have to take it on faith that in order to graduate with two degrees in Dramatic Writing (with a concentration on playwriting), I had to write many, many, many pages of coherent words, even if my drafts were a bit dodgy on occasion. 

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That said, as a Gen Xer, I’m prone to documenting and cataloguing history. I’ve long had a fascination with it and elements of what I’ve written have incorporated history or current events from a personal standpoint. Sometimes I’ve stepped out of my own time period. I can do that, too. My perspective is always from a place of timelessness. Even if something took place long ago, the lessons are still relevant today.

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Time changes. Humanity, fortunately or unfortunately, does not.

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I haven’t sent my work out as much. There are legit reasons for that as well. As a result, I’ve stockpiled a lot of writing, many plays and monologues. I realized in 2008 that some of my stories were connected. I hadn’t planned it that way, not consciously anyway. In 2010, I connected even more of them. It was like hooking up a bunch of railcars. There were characters to follow in the main trunk and other stories which focused on minor characters but elaborated on themes. 

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“Moving Off Mercer Street” is a part of this series, as is “Everybody in This House.” These are out of chronological order. Sorry about that. In 2020, I will be polishing up the first of the series and all of this will make much more sense.

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Oh, and the picture above? It’s from a reading of another play in the series. The reading took place at the Last Frontier Theatre Conference in 2013. I haven’t listed that one, as it isn’t ready yet. Soon. Very soon.

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If you would like to see a list of my plays and download samples, please visit the New Play Exchange. Any questions? Please contact me.